Endurance Championship - Season 2, Round 4, Brno - Mar 12

[Simon Gymer]

It was Raining, not Heavy Rain. Did it seem particularly bad?

No not at all. Was trying to work out whether to take softs or hards, but ended up with softs for the extra grip. Was the right choice.

Was quite a lonely race. Qualified on class pole. Race began and Dan Minton pushed me for the early part whilst I was feeling my way into it, but I was never under any real pressure and eventually I pulled out a handsome gap with my usual consistent driving. No spins, no offs, just drove sensibly and that saw me to the win. Kept seeing GT cars spin alot and then come back past, I just drove my own race really.

Good lapping by the GT cars, nice to see the rain bring Claus's speeds down from his normal rocket ship speeds in the dry. Only got lapped twice rather than 4 times, which was nice. 

Racing in the wet in a lot of ways is actually easier than the dry. There is so much more time to correct little errors or scrub off extra speed and so on, it's not so on the edge as the dry.

[picnic]

Replay and provisional results are available

[Mark J]

Great class win again Shark, i have to 'be-grudginly' say your driving very well at the moment ...s'pose you felt at home in all that water being a drip, err, i mean Shark an'all

Despite me missing all of praccy due to the stupid game not letting me log in, i had a reasonable qualy in the wet conditions.
Managed to stick close to Truetom and SBG in the early laps and get past both through either them spinning or a clean overtake manouvre. Then caught up with Pops and stayed behind him for a fair few laps until he got caught up in someone elses accident. Then spent a good chunk of the race on my own and gradually reeling in Whitham after what seemed like ages.
Saw him make his pitstop so pushed hard for several laps then made my own stop and gratifyingly came out in front of him.
Went past SBG again and had a rampant Whitham trying to claw his place back and we kept station for quite a few laps.
Then with about 5 mins to go, he closed right up with the extra straight line speed but made a lunge on the inside, into the downhill tight right hander. I kept my cool and he went sliding off (Unlucky mate)
Then it was just a case of bringing it home with a few laps remaining and got a well deserved 3rd NGT finish .

Might have been able to take the race to Dan a bit more, but lost about 20+ seconds when a lapping GT car spun me round.
I was very pleased to not have a single self induced spin for 80 minutes of exhausting driving in the wet

A tough race but really enjoyed it.

[Spudgun]

Well,

I can't grumble with 6th, it was one higher than I qualified.  I'm a little annoyed at myself for a couple of errors.  I locked the fronts and slithered off on lap 3 whilst showing my nose to Rich.  Thank god I didn't hit him up the back it was quite close!  Then not far from the end I was exiting a corner (can't remember the name of it right now) like I had every lap beforehand and the rear wheels just span up and the next thing I know my nose is parked up against the armco!  This was followed by frantic fumbling for neutral and reverse.

I agree with Shark. I quite like the wet, you can slide the car a bit more without killing the tyres too much.  You've just got to be careful with the 'go' and 'stop' pedals!

[Rich_A]

Wet physics are great.. no idea where i'm loosing three seconds there - hard tyre is fairly useless imo.

I spun three times, scrub sound much more quiet which I think is how it would be more in real life. Makes it more difficult.. my front softs were wrecked by about 50 min but lasted ok up to then. Maybe next time I can keep it together and find better wet weather pace - be interesting to know what tyre combo everyone used.

Had a good few laps with you Nikano at start, I guessed you had hard hard which is terrible on F550. Tried to find a place to pass but you showing no weakness and good pace too. Then in downhill section I flared inside, was in high gear so difficult getting revs down to stop it spinning. Good race and grats to winners, Claus and Shark.

[ginsters sponsored]

That was damn hard.

After terrible quali, decided to try non stopper. So I chose soft/hard combo filled the tank, but forgot to raise ride height. Not sure where the mistake was there, but suddenly I had a 911 that behaved like a spitting cobra, all oversteer and real twitchy through the off camber turns  . Sorry to Don and Whits if I seemed a bit "aggressive", not really my style just couldn't handle the bloody thing. To be honest your cars didn't seem much easier to handle  .

You were right Shark, the rain did bring out the best drivers, congrats to you Mark and Dan. Shame I wasn't one of them, just hope this 911 induced nervous twitch goes away before work tomorrow  .

By the way, would still like more races in the rain.

[whitham69]

Nice one jonzo, i had to push as the next GT car was closing fast. I new i couldnt make the corner so i let off the brakes and crash  ripping of the rear wing off. went from 11th to 17th in one stupid move. Just glad i never had you off as well. I always end up racing ngt cars.

[Minton]

Really enjoyed this one . Used my dry set up and tweaked it a bit for the rain and it seemed to be quite good .  Had a good start and managed to get past one of the Gt cars  at the second corner, bit of a sketchy move but had to do it as i new Shark would get away.   Drove the wheels of it for three laps and managed to stay with Shark but couldnt match him in the end and he just drove away , nice driving as usual mate After that just tried to keep the laps consistent but had one spin and lost about 15 secs in the pits with a crap pit-stop. Top driving by everyone as usual .
Overall well chuffed with second in class.

[Nakano_56]

Race went surprisingly well thought I'd try a no stopper and with hard/hards and 100liters of fuel it was hateful had to try hard to remain in front of Rich A an luckily (for me) he spun, was really marginal on fuel at the end had 3 liters left. Had an unfortunate spin with Kruger but was racing IMHO, although it cost me quite alot of time still manged to finish 4th so not a bad night.

[Simon Gymer]

Cheers. Good second Dan. You had good pace in qualifying.

My setup was...
Dry setup, but added two to rear wing to make it full rear wing, added 10% on both the coast and power diffs, reduced brake pressure to 95% from 100% and kept vent on qualifying size given the cooler conditions, 0.5 extra steering lock and 0.5 further forward on the brake balance. Soft wets front and rear for qual and race and changed at pit stop. They're a bit slow at pit stops. No fuel just tyres took 45 seconds!

I think it helped that I'd already tweaked my dry setup for more stability and rear end grip than before by making the back a lot softer. I never felt like the back end would come out.

[mo]

Grats to Claus on a good recovery to take the chequered flag.

Qual was great... close with the top 4 spilt by only 0.3sec.
The race started off in the same way but eventually CJ and Boyd dropped back after an incident where I saw one of them fly throough the air - amazed you finished after that btw
Had a good battle with Kreuger then for most of the race but somehow lost 20 sec in pitstop but ended up in front again somehow later on.
Anyway good drive Kreuger you were catching me for sure and in the end I pushed too hard, resulting in pucnture and a late trip to the pits with 2 to go.

Found it hard to tame the GT in the wet but thoroughly enjoyed it, thanks to the NGT guys for great driving while being lapped.

[Spudgun]

be interesting to know what tyre combo everyone used.

I was on soft wets all round which seemed to last well.  The temps were nice and low and I pitted with 35 minutes to go.  Then again, I've found the Lister to be quite easy on its tyres even in the dry.

[Rich_A]

Maybe even intermediates can work when it's only normal rain like that.. not easy racing in wet, but great fun specially T1 when I can get some big turn off the bumps.

Luv drivin my F550! I got some ideas for next one. Looks the buziness anyhow as do all the cars, like that mint green on your team Kerbkrawlers.

It's becoming more and more evident about GTR's lack of camber feedback, can't explain it too well but everything it does it does very well, except there's this one camber feel missing. Can make do np without it but I think with it will be the last piece of jigsaw so to speak and give more complete picture. Nascar2003 does what is missing in GTR, but GTR does everything else much better if not perfectly.

[popabawa]

Dreadful. That just about sums up my performance.

I'm usually OK in the wet but I think I left the track 4-5 times with unforced errors

Well done to Mark on his podium though

[Simon Gymer]

Another good turnout. 22 drivers made the start line, so just 2 short of capacity and just like to say well done to all the finishers. Really impressed with everyone's driving in the Endurance championship and in the wet yesterday after 80 minutes 19 out of the 22 made it to the end, which is fabulous!